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When World War II ended 70 years ago, Bernd Wollschlaeger's father was on the losing side.

Decades later, as a boy growing up in Germany, Wollschlaeger slowly began to piece together the role his father played in the war as a Nazi officer and tank commander.

An early clue came in 1972. While his family watched the opening ceremony of the Munich Olympic games, his parents looked away in disdain as the Israeli team paraded by. Then came the bombings and a newspaper headline: "Jews Killed in Germany Again."

What did it mean, Wollschlaeger asked.

"My father looked at me and said, 'It means nothing.'"

Wollschlaeger, now a physician, author and convert to Judaism living in Florida, told a crowd Sunday during a Holocaust memorial service. The Jewish Federation of the Desert organized the event at Eisenhower Medical Center's Annenberg Center in Rancho Mirage.

The event included songs, poems and readings by student essay-contest winners. Much of it focused on the theme "liberation," in recognition of Allied forces who helped end the war and liberate concentration camps in 1945.

Wollschlaeger's keynote speech drove the message that the worst parts of history shouldn't be ignored.

In the audience were many Holocaust survivors and their family members.

"I'm not the son of a survivor, I'm the son of a perpetrator," Wollschlaeger told them. "My father was one who killed Jews."

With the help of a teacher, the young Wollschlaeger started to learn about the Holocaust and the role his father played in it.

Later his father — drunk — admitted knowing about the mass killing of Jews and tried to defend it.

Wollschlaeger eventually became involved in his local Jewish community and in 1986 converted to the faith. He moved to Israel and served as a medical officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

He was afraid what would happen if the men working under him found out he was the son of a Nazi.

And much later Wollschlaeger took his son to the cemetery in Germany where his parents are buried. Their graves lie near the border between Jewish and non-Jewish sections, where gravestones from one section cast shadows over the other.

"History will always cast a shadow," he said to his son. "You can face history. Learn to step outside of the shadow."

Reach Barrett Newkirk at (760)778-4767, barrett.newkirk@desertsun.com or on Twitter @barrettnewkirk.